Peavey Heritage® VTX Guitar Amp

130 watts of tube sound from a hybrid amp

(Until recently, this amp was
my current rig, and I still like it just fine! It's on indefinite
loan to the youth band at church.

This has a tube output stage, but everything else is ICs or transistors
(a "hybrid" amp). It does a pretty good job of sounding like an all tube
amp while offering a lot of features not found on most tube amps.

The footswitch (which I hope to have soon) has a channel switch, a
bypass for the channel switch (both channels active!), phaser bypass
and reverb bypass. Unfortunately Peavey now uses a 7 pin DIN on their
four switch footswitches, so if I can't find an older one, I have to
buy a new one and modify it.

The phaser and reverb are both good quality with very good sound,
although both are a bit much when turned all the way up.
I love the Scorpion speakers; even after I statred playing all
tube amps again, I still used this as a speaker cabinet. Even
my 5 watt practice amp sounds much, much better (and much louder!)
using the Peavey as a speaker cab.

The Classic® VTX is a 65 watt version of the same amp.
All the VTX series amps are pretty hefty, in terms of power, features
and weight. You can probably find one in good condition for between
$150 and $300.

This sucker is loud. When I used this a lot, I was living
in a very bright home (no carpet,
panelling and rock walls); when practicing I almost never turned it up
ver yfar on the low power setting (which cuts the voltage to the output
stage in half, for a maximum of ~27 watts). With the switch in the
low power position, you can get some fine overdrive without rattling
your fillings loose, although it's still too loud at full volume for
anyone who isn't legally deaf.

I play a
heavily modified Hagström I®,
a two-pickup Strat® clone, with two
DiMarzio
``Super-Distortion Sustain''
(SDS-1)® pickups.
With this amp (and some pickup wiring tricks 8^)
I can get very close to the Gibson sounds of Cream or the Allman
Brothers, as well as typical Clapton/Vaughn/Hendrix Strat sounds,
surf music sounds, etc. The tone controls offer a lot of range,
and the amp handles everything from clean to dirty sounds quite
happily. I played a friend's
Jaguar®
through it, and got a great Ventures sound. My son's BC Rich ST Platinum
does a great ZZ Top imitation through this amp. It also works for
country, punk, Tejano, and about anything else you can think of.

As with all Peavey amps, the schematic is available for $2.50
and the manual is available for $7.50. You may be happy with
the
online
PDF version; the paper copy is a bit better quality, but is just an 8x11,
heavy stock, tri-fold. You can order either or both directly from
Peavey .

Some folks are down on Peaveys. I'm not
sure why. Yeah, at one time, long ago in a
musical galaxy far, far away, Peavey made
some not so good amps. But so has almost
every other major amp maker. Meanwhile,
Peavey has made a ton of great amps, at a
price much more affordable for the working
musician than most of the other big name brands.
The newer ones are difficult to work on, but
again, what affordable, mass-produced amps
(or anything else!) aren't that way? If you
want something easy to work on, buy an old
tube amp
or a new, more expensive, boutique, tube amp.
If you just need an affordable amp that sounds
good, you owe it to yourself to check out a
Peavey. The Classic and Heritage lines are
my favorites. (Thanks to John King for inspiring
me to add a Peavey defense!)